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17 March 2009

I've often heard the comment that much of science is asking good questions. That's true. I also heard often in school that there are no bad questions, which is reasonably correct also. But there can be quite a distance between not bad and good. I can't, however, remember anybody describing how to go about asking better questions. There are probably many different ways of improving, so, as usual, I invite comments.

An important part of a good question is, it will be clear that it has been answered. Start with the not-bad question "What's up with climate?" Maybe you answer talking about sea ice and polar bears. But I'm unsatisfied because what I wanted to hear about was global temperatures. So I ask the improved question "What's up with global temperatures?", and you answer talking about how the stratospheric temperatures have dropped and surface temperatures have risen lately. But I'm still unsatisfied, because I don't care about the stratosphere, and the surface temperatures I care about are the ocean's. So now I ask "What's up with ocean surface temperatures?", and you say 'not much', or, maybe, 'they've risen'. Again, I don't have an answer. You're doing your best, and being honest, but the questions just aren't strong enough.

A strong question is "How much has global mean sea surface temperature changed over the past 150 years, and what are the uncertainties in that number?" This, neither you, nor I, nor any random spectator will have any difficulty telling whether I've gotten an answer to my question. It'll be something like "risen by 0.5 C and 0.1 C standard error in that estimate". Whether 0.5 and 0.1 are correct, I don't know offhand. But, at this point, the question has an answer which is fill in the blank. We can then hit the literature (say IPCC Ch. 3 and the citations in that chapter) looking for it. If the question didn't have an answer waiting for us in the literature, we also know how to start doing our research -- look for data sources about ocean surface temperature, that are distributed over the globe, and which go back 150 years (or more, of course).

A different strong question is "Why is the sky blue?" No reason that young kids can't be asking strong questions. An answer to this question must adress why the sky is blue, as opposed to green. And a strong answer will tell you how blue it will be under different conditions. If, for instance, you have a high humidity and many aerosols, the sky tends towards white -- under the action of the same process which tells us that the sky (away from the sun) is very blue when the air is clean and dry. (Rayleigh scattering).

Questions that start "What about ...", "How about ...", "What's up with ..." are almost never strong questions. Strong questions usually start "How much ...", "How fast ...", "How big ...", or say "How well do we know ...".

If we really don't know much about an area, which is the case for us for most areas of human knowledge, it can be hard to ask strong questions. So we start with the not-bad questions aimed at learning more about the area, and keep asking them until we can ask strong questions. Hence my 'question place'.

Robert,I'll propose that your are not so much discussing strong questions, as precision in language. Whether in question or statement form, many people just are not straightforward in what they say. Politicians are the usual culprits, but I often recoil at how many bad sentences I read from supposedly educated people (especially in peer reviewed literature). More words do not a good question make.

Ah, but there are. In an upper level undergrad molecular biology class, on the day before Turkey day break, the prof was lecturing about % GC in DNA. A student raises her hand and asks, "What units are those? Is that gram-centimeters or what?"

gmcrews: :-) I'll point to one of my later comments, however. In some situations, I don't know enough to make a strong question. So I'll ask the weaker question. I'm sure there's more to the subject than I wrote up.

Philip: I definitely prefer to see precision in language. I'd agree that any strong question uses precision in its language. But it's easy enough to ask a question that is precise, but not strong. ex. "Have you quit beating your wife?" -- asked of someone you have no reason to believe has been doing so. More apt to my science: "Why don't climatologists correct for the urban heat island effect?" In truth, they do and have for decades.

Bayesian: What GC are you referring to? Guanine and Cytosine? (Folks: I'm guessing that this is the GC of the genetic code, the other two letters of which are A and T.)

That question I'd say was ok. Granted that a % cannot have units -- grams, centimeters, furlongs, fortnights, or whatever. But, if a student was shaky enough that they didn't understand that, the question is a route to learning more, so it ok.

A bad classroom question is "Will this be on the test?" It satisfies the precision of a good question, but the human response of the teacher makes it a bad one to ask.

by the way, what is 'fcd'?

Hank: You know, I think I never have seen it. You missed the .html on the link, http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.htmland I'll encourage folks ot take a look at it and see how often it applies to asking good questions about science. It seems pretty good if 'hacker' is replaced with 'scientist', and 'software' is replaced with 'science'.

Yay! I guess I'll continue repeating myself (grin). I've found teenagers quite receptive to the "Smart Questions" piece, perhaps because they quickly can develop a deep appreciation for just how snarky an impatient computer expert can be and still be helpful.

Examples from experience:

H: That's trivial.Me: What does that mean?H; It's not worth my time to solve it for you, and you'll never figure it out by yourself.

H: That's almost right.Me: What does that mean?H: Wrong.

H: That's off by one.Me: What does that mean?H: It's acceptable -- for horseshoes or hand grenades.

ESR is teaching something I watched my dad teach when advising grad students for many years -- that a student who has taken the time to read and try to understand even some small part of someone's work before asking for help or clarification will really surprise most scientists and get far more response.

Welcome

I'll be trying what seems to be an unusual approach in blogs -- writing to be inclusive of students in middle school and jr. high*, as well as teachers and parents (whether for their own information or to help their children). To that end, comments will have to pass a stricter standard than I'd apply for an all-comers site. It shouldn't be onerous, just keep to the topic and use clean language.

I expect it to be fun for all, however, as you really can get quite far in understanding the world, even climate, by understanding this sort of fundamental. If I get too much less fundamental, let me know where I went astray.

* Ok, I concede that not many middle school students will get everything. Even a fair number of adults will find some parts hard to follow. Still, some middle school kids will have fun. And almost everyone will follow a number of posts just fine.

Please see the comment policy for details. And the link policy for details about that. The latter is more open than you might expect.

About Me

In my day job I work on the oceanography, meteorology, climatology, glaciology end of my science interests, but I'm interested in everything, science or not. So I've also been on stage in a production of Comedy of Errors, run an ultramarathon, and been to Epidaurus, Greece, to see a production of Euripides' Iphigenia among the Taurians
Prior to starting the current job, I was a post-doc in oceanography in the UCAR ocean modelling program, and earned my doctorate from the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago (1989). My undergraduate degree involved Applied Math, Engineering, Astrophysics, and Glaciology.
Of course I don't speak for my employer, whoever that may be.